


We Meet Again

by Intoxicatedstarlight



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Clarke Griffin, Bisexual Clarke Griffin, Eventual Clarke Griffin/Lexa, F/F, Fluff, POV Clarke Griffin, Past Finn Collins/Clarke Griffin, Revelations, Useless Lesbian Lexa (The 100), clarke is a social recluse because mood, gratuitous angst, lexa is sweet and protective and gay as hell, octavia is a party girl because plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 09:14:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21491914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Intoxicatedstarlight/pseuds/Intoxicatedstarlight
Summary: When I woke up and you were gone, I felt like I somehow deserved that, because I had dared to… want something between us. But now you’re here, too, and I don’t know, it feels like…”“Fate? Destiny? Proof that God has a sense of humour?” Clarke offered.Lexa just gave that small, twist of a smile. “Something like that.”-She was never supposed to see her again.  She was supposed to have a one night stand, get over the mess of her last relationship, and move on with her life gracefully. She wasn't supposed to be haunted by the memory of a willowy girl in combat boots, and that girl definitely was not meant to show up at her friend's party, complete with a leather jacket and Clarke's name still softly on her lips.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin & Lexa, Clarke Griffin/Lexa, Finn Collins/Clarke Griffin, Finn Collins/Raven Reyes
Comments: 20
Kudos: 178





	We Meet Again

**Author's Note:**

> First, a total disclaimer that the whole premise of this fic was inspired by my love for wonderwhy's Hiccstrid fanfiction, (don't) delete the kisses, which is marvellous though unfinished, so if you find this mildly tolerable and are a HTTYD fan, definitely check that out. 
> 
> -
> 
> This fic hit me in an odd surge of inspiration and wouldn't rest until I wrote it all out like a crazy fever dream in a single day. I have been reading Clexa fanfiction religiously since my sapphic heart discovered them years ago but this is my first contribution: consider it repayment for so many beautiful fics that have been shared on this website.

It wasn’t supposed to be anything serious. Hell, she’d just gotten out of a serious relationship – the whole point of this had been to wash herself clean, or whatever.

  
“It honest to God works,” Octavia had argued, as she sat on Clarke’s couch. “go through a sucky break up, you go out and get laid and it like, cleanses you. Gets you back in order.” 

Clarke had rolled her eyes at the uninvited guest as she had continued to make her breakfast. “I am not out of order. I’m totally fine. Never been better.”  
“Right,” Octavia had deadpanned. “You find out that your boyfriend was cheating on you with one of your best friends and you are in the prime of your life.”  
“Technically,” Clarke had argued back, “He cheated with me. Finn and Raven were together first. She’s the one who deserves to be upset. I’m fine. Totally fine.” She articulated the syllables forcefully, before softening slightly. “How is she, Raven, I mean.”  
Octavia bit her lip – something she wasn’t known for doing. It spoke enough about the situation. “She…”  
“Wants me dead?”  
“She’s in an awkward place, right now,” Octavia said carefully. “she’ll come around, hopefully. If she engages her brain and dumps his ass.”  
Clarke nodded, glaring into the smoothie machine and getting a sick kind of satisfaction at turning it on and watching the fruit turn to pulp. Octavia hopped off the couch and walked over to her, putting an awkward hand on her shoulder, her voice lowering to a comforting whisper.  
“Hey, it’s okay.” She stroked her friend’s hair. “Just go and get your brains fucked out by a random stranger and it will all be easier to deal with, I promise.”  
“Octavia.”  
“Or I could set you up with someone if that would be easier…”

  
It had taken all her energy to work up an excuse to get her friend out of the house, and then the silence of it had somehow been deafening. Against her better judgement (that judgement being: if Octavia recommended it, stay as far away as possible) she had dug out her heels and her favourite lipstick and that dress that was probably two sizes too small and marched to the end of town where nobody had any right to know who she was.  
And somehow, she had ended up here.

  
The curtains had never quite been closed, and the morning light peaked through them and down to the bed, cascading over the wild brown curls and olive skin of the girl beside her, who lay back-turned to her, elegant frame heaving soft, deep breaths as she was still fast asleep. She could have modelled as an elf or a fairy in one of Clarke’s more fantastical paintings – she had the grace, but in stark contrast to this was the black geometric tattoos that stretched down her back and across her arms.  
Clarke then realised with perfect clarity that she was completely naked under the sheets.. Most of the night was a total haze, small snippets filtered their way through in no particular order.  
She’d been wearing a leather jacket last night, Clarke recalled as she hovered her hand above the torso of the girl, too hesitant to touch her but somehow still drawn to. And boots. They’d been a nightmare to pull off when she was trying to be seductive and flirtatious and had ended up heaving in fits of laughter…

  
Well. She’d done it. What she set out to do. She’d slept with a stranger. It had meant nothing.  
And yet, it somehow had. There had been laughter, and some kind of… some kind of dancing, and then sweaty limbs against sweaty limbs, and then after all of it they had just laid and talked about… everything and this girl, she was, she was just…  
Clarke couldn’t remember her name. The realisation hit her like a jolt. It had been something… something short. Elegant but sharp, a name that had rolled off her tongue between _yes_ and _please_ and _more._

  
Way to go, Griffin, she thought to herself. You are officially a sleazebag.  
Well. Maybe it really hadn’t meant anything. Maybe her drunk self just got overly attached and emotional. Not that she got drunk often enough to really be able to say. Perhaps it would make leaving easier.

  
Her phone ringtone suddenly shattered the thoughtful silence, and Clarke jolted upright, throwing herself from the bed to find the source of the noise. Despite the room being immaculately clean and organised, the clothes from last night were strewn around in incredibly disorganised fashion. Finally, she found her purse in the mess and lifted her phone to her ear, gathering her clothes up in her other arm and pulling them on hastily.

  
“Hello?”  
“CLARKE!” Octavia yelled through the speaker. “I have a solution to all of your problems!”  
“I’m sorry?” Clarke asked as she tried to slip back into the too-tight dress, and zip it up with one hand.  
“You know, your gloomy, used and discarded like a cheap Kleenex, problems. I’m going to set you up!”  
“Wow, thanks Octavia, but that’s really not-”  
“Come on Clarke! She’s totally your type. Tall, willowy, gorgeous and badass. She’s the captain of my hockey team, and-”  
“You know I’m not really into sporty types-”  
Octavia ignored her. “And she’s in Bellamy’s pre-law class. Please, just let me get you laid! You don’t even have to do anything but show up and smile, she’ll be at the party tonight.”

  
A sound came from the bed as the girl rolled over, giving a low hum as she rearranged herself to be comfortable. Clarke felt a sinking feeling in her chest – something suspiciously like guilt.  
_I didn’t make any promises_, she told herself. It’s just a one-night-stand, people did this all the time. It wasn’t a big deal.  
She knew she should stay. That was the normal, basic human decency thing to do, but, if she stayed, it somehow made this thing between them real, and the whole point of this had been to get out of a relationship mindset. If she stayed if she saw the girl’s eyes flutter open and a small sleepy smile stretch across her face, as she mumbled _Clarke_, she would be lost. And she’d have nothing to say back. In the end, it would hurt just everybody a whole lot more, and-  
“Clarke! Oh my god, I can still hear you breathing there, you know, you can’t just-”  
“Fine!” Clarke said in a slightly sharper whisper. Anything to end this conversation and get out of here as fast as she could. She checked around her to make sure that she had everything. Maybe the sleeping girl would just think it was a really, odd, very vivid dream. Maybe she’d been totally drunk and wouldn’t have remembered her anyway. Maybe she would have wanted her gone. Maybe this was better for everyone.  
With one last look back into the room, Clarke pulled the door shut behind herself, and heard the final click of the lock as it slid into place.  
Well. No going back now.  
On the phone, Octavia was freaking out. “Yes! Thank you! You won’t regret it! Just come over to the party around 8, you know, to set shit up, and-”  
“Wait, what? A party?”  
She could practically hear Octavia roll her eyes on the other end of the line. “Yes, Clarke. The party. At mine and Bellamy’s house. To celebrate the winter holidays. Do you hear anything I say?”  
“Unfortunately, yes.”  
“I’m giving you the finger right now.”  
“I can tell,” Clarke sighed, as she walked out onto the street and began the walk of shame home. “I’ll be there. Got to go now, bye!” She hung up before she could get much of a reply and looked across the street to the window that must have been the girl’s apartment. The lights were on. She’d woken up. She knew Clarke had left.  
Clarke had never felt self-loathing more potent in that moment. She wanted to run across the street and back up the stairs and knock on the door and beg to be let back in, to apologise, to claim it was all somehow a mistake and ask to pretend it had never happened.  
She imagined that face, that had been so happy and alive last night, contorted with disappointment. Maybe her olive skin would have turned red from tears. Maybe she’d slap Clarke – that would be fair.  
But Clarke didn’t cross the street, walk up the stairs and knock on the door. Instead, she turned on her heel and continued on her way home.  
She wasn’t ready for a relationship yet. She wasn’t ready to trust someone again, yet. Not so soon after Finn.  
_You’re just as bad as him,_ a voice told her. _Do you feel better now you’ve passed the pain on to someone else?_  
_Coward._  
…

She somehow worked up enough energy to get herself home, and showered, before collapsing into a nap that was disturbed by a barrage of messages from Octavia demanding her immediate presence. She had pulled on her jeans and a t-shirt and flung herself back out of her house.

  
“Wow, is there a change of clothes in the bag?” Octavia asked as she opened the door to see Clarke dressed in her casual jeans and messy bun.  
“You know I only have casual wear and workwear, not a vast array of house-party dresses” Clarke sighed as Octavia took the bag and pulled out the crisps and cookies. And frowned at the ginger ale. Clarke took it back off her. “No drinking for me tonight. Sorry.”  
Octavia pouted, but didn’t push the point, opening the door wider for Clarke to enter and carrying the bag to the kitchen.  
“There’s no one here,” Clarke noted.  
“Well, duh, it’s 8 pm,” Octavia said as she poured the crisps into a bowl. “You’re the most responsible mum friend I have. Thought you might like to help me get everything set up.”  
Clarke sighed but began to set out the bowls. “Where’s Bellamy? I thought you said he-”  
“Clarke!” he exclaimed from the doorway, coming in to give her a bear hug. “Little sis isn’t coercing you into manual labour, is she?”  
“She is, most cruelly,” Clarke hugged him back and then let him go. If possible, he was even taller than the last time she’d seen him. “Could you stop fucking growing? It’s really rude.”  
Bellamy laughed and shrugged. “Not my fault you’re a midget. And maybe you wouldn’t think I’d grown so fast if you had spent any time with us in the last six months.”  
Clarke side eyed him. He was joking, sure, but she could tell there was a truth to the words from the bite.  
“Sorry,” she grimaced. “between the internship, and school, and work, and …” him, she almost said, but left it off, the silence speaking more than a simple statement might have. Bellamy caught on, and thankfully didn’t rake her over the coals for it. He nudged her with his elbow.  
“Hey, it’s fine. You’re here now, right?” He grinned. “Octavia told me she’s going to try and set you up.”  
God. She’d almost forgotten. “yeah,” she grimaced. “I guess there’s no shutting her up until she gets her way, and it shouldn’t be that bad.”  
“I heard that,” Octavia yelled from the other room, where she had departed to start setting up the music and speakers. Bellamy chuckled.  
“Well, Octavia may be a crazy matchmaker at the best of times, but I can give the candidate good references,” he said – whether truthfully or to comfort her, she had no idea. “She’s in the class I teach. She’s…” he grappled for the right words. “interesting. She seems a little… supercilious to begin with, but she’s smart and hardworking and even nice once she warms up to you.”  
Clarke laughed. “Great, haughty and arrogant, this is sure to be a fun evening.”  
“Hey, she’ll like you,” he said. “Everyone does.”  
Clarke laughed obligingly but heard the unspoken words.  
He was nice. In another lifetime, it might have been him and her, together – but they were never single at the same time, and circumstances had never led to it. They’d been friends since high school now, and with so many false starts she didn’t think it would ever really amount to anything. Plus, he was Octavia’s brother, and older, and that… complicated things. Well. She was glad to know they could always be friends, without awkward romance shit getting in the way.  
“See?” Octavia said as she re-entered the room. “Even Bellamy thinks she’ll be perfect for you. I’m right about this one, Clarke: just you wait and see.”  
_And what if she is perfect?_ Clarke thought as she mixed up the dip. _Another girl to disappoint and leave behind and be a total fucking ass to._ The guilt resurged with full force, and she sniffed to hold back tears.  
Bellamy looked at her again. “You okay?”  
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she responded automatically. “I’m just-”  
“No thinking about Finn!” Octavia yelled. “No thinking about him! This is going to be a great and wonderful evening and I refuse to allow you to ruin it with thoughts of that stupid asshole!”  
“I wasn’t thinking of him!” Clarke yelled back defensively. The truth and force in it startled the two siblings. Great. Now she needed an explanation. “it’s just… the onions in the dip,” she said, the worst fucking excuse she had ever made in her life. “just, like, get off my back, okay?”  
Octavia stared at her with wide eyes. “Um, yeah, okay. I’ll be in the other room.”  
“Shit.” She turned and leant back against the counter. “Now I’ve pissed off your sister too.”  
“She’ll bounce back around,” Bellamy says. “She’ll be back in here annoying you before you know it.”  
Clarke gave a wry smile. “Yeah. It just feels like I can’t do anything right at the moment. I’m just upsetting and disappointing everyone left right and centre. You, Octavia, My Mom, Raven," she trailed off, not knowing the last name that she needed to put on the list. “And now I’m going to add this poor girl’s name to the list as well, and I don’t know, maybe there’s a reason I spent most of the year in my study cave and just trying not to piss anyone off.”  
“Okay, first of all, I’m not mad at you, I was concerned for you, that’s different. Same with Octavia. Your Mom just want you to do the best you can so you can have the best possible life, and Raven…” he sighed. “That’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”  
Clarke was glad that Octavia seemed to have filled him in. It might have been weird to try and tell him. She sighed. “I feel so stupid, you know? Like, how could I not have fucking known? – like, if I hadn’t been so absorbed in myself and my grades and actually talked to you guys at all in the last year, you would have been able to tell me that Raven was dating, and who, and this mess never would have happened.”  
“Hey.” He said, steadying her with hands on her arms. “it isn’t your fault. It is completely, entirely his fault, and he is the complete and entirely stupid one for being a dick and abusing your trust. You have nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. Okay?”  
“Okay. But-”  
“No buts. Repeat after me: I am not to blame for Finn’s actions.”  
She rolled her eyes, but repeated, and repeated and repeated as he demanded until it finally sounded genuine.  
“There you go,” Bellamy smiled. The doorbell rang. “I got to go get that.”  
“Such an obliging host,” she mocked, but nodded him on, and poured herself a glass of ginger ale.

  
People started arriving and Clarke retreated back into the kitchen, listening to the ruckus and bass beat of the music. The Blakes' house was party central for the group of friends. They were, after all, the only ones with an actual house – considering Bellamy actually worked and the little inheritance they’d gotten when both their parents passed – something they never spoke about. It was what had brought them together as kids: at the same support group for kids who had recently lost their parents – though Clarke still had her Mom, and the siblings still had each other, it was good to have someone else who you didn’t have to hide around. It was convenient in college, even if she hadn’t been to many parties lately.  
Octavia appeared in the doorway, hot on her toes, typing on her phone. “They’re here!”  
“They?”  
“Lincoln and Alexandra,” Octavia said like it should be obvious. She shrieked, and grabbed Clarke’s hand, pulling her through the crowds.  
“How are you already half drunk?”  
“Just talented I guess!” she yelled as she threw open the door and launched herself into Lincoln’s arms, who, luckily caught her. “You’re here!” she sighed and started kissing him, ferociously, until he had to set her back down on her feet.  
“I’m here,” he smiled. “Hey, Clarke! Haven’t seen you in a while.”  
“Yeah, nice to see you again,” she responded automatically as he steps in the door, shrugging off his coat and adding it to the small pile. He then looked back outside, making a gesturing motion for whoever was with him to enter, and she does, stepping over the threshold entirely regally, curly brown hair in intricate braids, falling over her leather jacket, matched with her combat boots. “This is my cousin, Alexandra.”  
This has to be a fucking joke, Clarke tried to reason with the universe as she just stood there, mouth agape, non-reactionary. The girl’s eyes scanned the room first, almost as if assessing the emergency exists, before falling on her. Realisation dawned, deep in the grey-green of them, and she mouthed, almost imperceptibly, Clarke.  
Clarke wished the ground would swallow her whole.  
“You can call me Lexa, actually,” she said simply – something that seemed to surprise Lincoln and Octavia both with its familiarity, but they didn’t question it.  
Lexa. How could she have forgotten that? Considering how often she had whined it last night, into the girl's shoulder, begged and pleaded and sighed…  
“Cool, cool, nickname basis,” Octavia smiled. “This lovely lady here is-”  
“Clarke.” Lexa finished, her mouth quirking. “I know. We met… recently.”  
“Oh?” all the eyes are on her now, but Clarke was still just staring, synonyms for expletives echoing around her head. Octavia punched her arm and knocked her out of it. “You didn’t tell me?”  
“I, um, I didn’t realise that you… that you all knew each other.” So much for fucking a stranger. “small world.”  
What the actual fuck. What was she saying? Lexa was just standing there, appraising her, a single eyebrow lifted. Was she… amused? Trying not to laugh? It was almost worse than if she yelled and screamed in Clarke's face. At least then Clarke might feel she deserved it, it might make some of the rotting guilt go away, but this, she has no idea what to do with this, and she’s just trying to figure it out when another knock sounds on the door and she darts out of the group with the excuse to go and open it, hoping whoever it is will give her an excuse to start up a conversation and figure out what the heck she was going to do with this impossible situation.  
She opened the door with her biggest smile, “Hello, welcome to-”  
She stopped in her tracks. Standing before her was her once best friend, and beside her – holding her hand, was the boy who had shattered her heart only a month ago.  
“Finn,” she muttered under her breath, to what purpose she doesn’t know – in longing or anger or just plain surprise. She didn’t have time to figure it out before Raven took two steps forward, and slapped Clarke across the face, sending a sudden hush through the crowd behind her, and Clarke onto the floor.  
Yes, she concluded, my life is a joke, and I’m only now spiralling into the punch line.  
-  
“I didn’t know they would be here,” a contrite voice said. “I thought they would have the good sense to stay away.”  
“Yeah, well you know Raven,” Clarke said wryly as she placed an icepack on her face. “Never one to stand down from a challenge.”  
Octavia took a step closer. “You okay?”  
“Yeah,” Clarke shrugged. “What’s another little bit of social humiliation to add to the heap?” she softened. “It’s not your fault, Octavia.”  
Lincoln appeared in the doorway. Clarke could never get over how such a tall and muscular man managed to move so gracefully and gently. Despite herself, she smiled at the sight of him wrapping an arm around his girlfriend and waiting behind her expectantly. She shook her head in mock disapproval.  
“Go on, lovebirds, get out of here. I’m fine.”  
Octavia looked twice over her shoulder for conformation before leading her lover boy out of the room. The opening of the door let the deafening noise of the music and the cheering and Clarke was painfully reminded of the lingering hangover and exhaustion from the night before. It was just one of those days.

  
Clarke padded across the living room, pushing past the gyrating dancers, and slid outside the patio door. She was just about to sit down when she spotted another figure in the twilit darkness.  
“son of a-” she muttered under her breath, before snapping her mouth shut as Lexa turned to face her, jumping slightly at the sudden presence of another person interrupting her solitude.  
Clarke swallowed the lump in her throat. “I can go if you’d like.” She half wanted Lexa to say yes, to banish her from her sight, but instead, the girl just gave a magnanimous nod, and Clarke settled herself down on the porch steps, nothing but silence passing between the two of them for a few moments.  
“So, did you run out on her too?” Lexa asked, simply, with as little judgement as the statement could possibly muster, as she looked between Clarke and the icepack.  
“No,” Clarke said. “I dated her boyfriend behind her back for three months.”  
“Wow.”  
Clarke shrugged. Did she need Lexa’s good opinion? Why? She hadn’t needed it this morning, when she’d run out on her, she didn’t need it half an hour ago, when she tried to run away again. And yet, sitting here in the relative silence of the garden, with the girl with the green eyes, she just wanted…  
“I didn’t know. That he was dating her,” she clarified. “He didn’t say. Not that Raven would ever believe that: it isn’t very believable. I dumped him when I found out, but…” she twisted the leaves in her hands. “I was stupid. I didn’t know how to tell her. So, of course, he told her first and wrote the narrative."  
Lexa tilted her head. “Sucks.”  
Clarke laughed, a hoarse chuckle. “yeah, it does that.” She hesitated. “I’m not trying to, I don’t know, make you feel sorry for me, or something. You… you can be mad at me if you want.”  
“Thanks for the permission.”  
“You know what I mean,” Clarke insisted, turning to see that Lexa was smiling – that insufferable amused smile again. She looked away. They sat in silence for a bit, listening to the wind blow through the trees and to their own thoughts.  
“So, that’s why you went out last night?” Lexa concluded. “To get over him?”  
“Octavia said it would work.”  
“Octavia seems to have an odd investment in your sex life.”  
Clarke’s eyes widened at how easily Lexa says that, a girl who seemed so regal and proper and yet can make that sort of a joke. She smiled. “That she does.”  
A pause.  
“I’m sorry,” Clarke said it more to her hands than the girl sitting next to her. “I haven’t said that yet. I should’ve. It was a dick move. A real dick move, and like I said, you have every right to hate me, but,” she risked a glance up at her – face impossible to read. “this – it’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation, but, I… I liked you. More than I was really counting on. Or that I was prepared for. And that scared the shit out of me, and like a coward, I ran.”  
There was silence between them again. Then softly; “I liked you too. And, if I’m being honest, as you are,” Lexa sighed, staring wordlessly out the garden, and somehow beyond it; “I was a little relieved when you were gone. Disappointed, and abandoned, but relieved.” She shifted a little beside Clarke. She was close enough that she could feel her body heat, radiating off her.  
It had been lovely to sleep in the same bed, she recalled. Lexa was like a human hot water bottle.  
Lexa smiled wryly, and it snapped Clarke back into focus. “I suppose, I’ve, er, had a hard time of it too. Relationships, I mean. I haven’t dated anyone in over a year.” She laughed without humour “I think that’s partly why Octavia tried to set us up.” She was fiddling with the end of one of her braids, undoing the links and reweaving them in a completely endearing way. “It’s… my last girlfriend died. In a car accident. Almost two years ago, now. It was, has been… hard. I alluded to it last night, but I didn’t exactly say.” She met Clarke’s gaze, and there was sorrow there, but also some kind of hope. “Last night… it was the first time that I was able to just, have fun and not feel guilty about it. Like I didn’t owe it to her to despise my life without her in it. And when I woke up and you were gone, I felt like I somehow deserved that, because I had dared to… want something between us. But now you’re here, too, and I don’t know, it feels like…”  
“Fate? Destiny? Proof that God has a sense of humour?” Clarke offered.  
Lexa just gave that small, twist of a smile. “Something like that.”  
“Well,” Clarke turned to properly face her. “Seeing as we’re both… how we are and provided you can look past my indiscretion, do you… want to be friends?”  
Lexa was impassive for a moment before she let a full smile creep across her face. “Friends, yeah. I’d like that.”

  
“We need drinks so we can drink to it,” Clarke said, standing up and offering her hand out for Lexa to take. “And pizza, because I’m hungry. Would you like some?”  
“No, I’m vegan,” Lexa replied as they walked inside, and chuckled as she saw Clarke’s gaze rest on her leather jacket and boots. “They’re faux. Well, the boots are, and the jacket’s vintage, so.”  
Clarke smirked. “And here I was thinking I slept with some sexy heartless badass.”  
She had meant it as a joke, but a flaming red blush crept up Lexa’s neck and shoulders. Clarke winked.

  
“What’s this I hear?” Octavia appeared seemingly from nowhere. “You two already slept together? Quick work!”  
Clarke immediately backtracked. “What? No. I said that I was thinking you wouldn’t have vegan pizza because you’re a heartless cheap-ass.”  
Octavia frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a word. Even if it is, it is totally undeserved, because I am the kindest and most gracious host, and of course, bought vegan pizza for my darling captain.” She leant over and kissed Lexa on the cheek, whose eyes went wide with shock, but let out a small laugh. “See, I just knew you two would get along together. You can thank me later.”  
“You should watch what you’re drinking, Octavia, we have training tomorrow.”  
But Octavia had already disappeared back into the throng, and Clarke had to do a bit of detective work to figure out where a drunk Octavia might have stored a vegan pizza. Luckily, she managed to find it.  
Lexa’s eyes lit up. “It’s been ages since I ate anything decadent. I try to keep up a healthier lifestyle, I guess.” She said by way of explanation when Clarke sent her a quizzical look. “Helps with the hockey.”  
She saw Clarke’s almost imperceptible grimace. “Not a sport’s girl yourself? You don’t play?”  
“I’m more of an artist,” Clarke said as graciously as she could. “at least, I dabble in it. Haven’t gotten much of a chance to work on it due to mountains of work from med school, and the like, but… yeah. That’s where my passion is. But it’s cool that you play hockey. Fearsome stuff.”  
“It can be rough,” Lexa agreed. “You should come to catch a game sometime. The semi-finals are coming up, and Octavia will be playing too. And, in return, maybe I could see some of your paintings?”  
Clarke blanched. “Well, yeah, I mean, if you want to, but it… the stuff is just for me, it isn’t, like, much to look at. So you may be getting short-changed here.”  
“I think you’re underselling yourself.” Lexa teased. “So, you’re a med student?”  
“Yeah, like my parents before me.” Clarke said. “I guess, I’m not passionate about it, but it’s what I’m good at, so why not.”  
Lexa nodded. “I understand that. I’m studying law and international relations. Hopefully will be a human rights lawyer someday or part of the UN. At least, that’s the plan. Where do you want to be a doctor?”  
“I don’t know,” Clarke admitted. “My mother is a city doctor, but my dad was always going on trips to third world countries and helping out with epidemics there. He died when I was 16.”  
Lexa nodded. “You told me about it, last night.”  
“Oh,” Clarke smiled. “You remember a lot more than I did.”  
Lexa rolled her eyes. “I didn’t get quite as drunk as you. But, anyway – it’s kind of awkward, but I thought I should mention, that we didn’t actually have sex. We… took our clothes off and kissed a lot but nothing, in that way, happened.”  
Clarke blinked, “that’s so weird, I have like, memories of asking you…”  
Lexa ducked her gaze. "Yeah, about that, um..."

It was Clarke’s turn to blush a deep scarlet.  
“wow. This is so fucking embarrassing…”  
“No, don’t be embarrassed,” Lexa reassured her, placing a finger against Clarke’s mouth to stop her objecting “I wanted to, too, but you know, you were drunk and not totally in your right mind, and like really tired, so we just left it there.”  
“Such a gentlewoman,” Clarke smiled, and in response, Lexa leant forward and kissed her.  
It was s soft thing – like the brush of a butterfly’s wings, slow and gentle and warm, before Lexa pulled back, green eyes meeting blue in a silent confirmation that this was… it was okay, and then she leant back in, harder this time, as if hungering for something she couldn’t quite reach.  
Clarke stood there, for a second, pizza still in hand, and shocked, before she came to her senses, abandoning the slice on the side and wrapping her arms around Lexa’s neck to deepen the kiss.  
“Not so gentle,” Lexa smirked as she pulled back, catching Clarke’s lip in her teeth. Clarke laughed.  
“Fuck being friends” She turned them until Lexa’s back was pressed up against the counter and lifted her up until she rested on it. Lexa wound her legs around Clarke’s waist and moaned slightly into her mouth. Lexa groaned her agreement into her mouth, trailing kisses down her neck.  
“This is so unhygienic,” she said in a sex-soft voice. “We should move somewhere else…”  
“Somewhere more private?” Clarke kissed her , once, twice, three times, and gave a mischievous smile “Maybe Octavia’s room is free.”  
Lexa’s eyes widened. It came as a shock each time, the gentleness of her spirit and words in contrast to her so outwardly rebellious and hard-hearted aesthetic. Clarke gripped her closer.  
“What? She keeps egging us on, so it’s really all she deserves.”  
A sudden daring glimmered in Lexa’s eyes, and she gave a small nod of assent as Clarke lifted her back off the counter and started to lead her through the crowd, jostling the dancing drunk couples as then held hands. They were finally at a slightly more abandoned corridor, and Clarke turned to push one of the loose braids behind Lexa’s ear. “Now, where were-”  
“Clarke.” A voice said behind them. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”  
Fuck.  
“Finn.” Clarke said, trying to step around him, but he stepped in front of her again. She gritted her teeth. Lexa looked up at her with questioning eyes. Clarke let out a long-suffering sigh. “Finn, Lexa, Lexa, this is Finn – Raven’s boyfriend.”  
Lexa’s eyes flashed with a deadly recognition and for a second Clarke saw her shift- from the girl she was around her, vulnerable, gentle and radiant – to what she had first met last night when they had met at that bar and she had given a glare to that guy who was chatting her up – Alexandra. It was jarring as if she had suddenly pulled up the draw bridge and gotten ready for battle.  
“Nice to meet you,” Finn said, trying on his best smile, which Lexa made no attempt or pretence to return. “Well. Would you mind excusing us, so I can talk to Clarke? Won’t take a moment.”  
Lexa mulled it over, the muscle in her jaw tight before she looked to Clarke for confirmation. Clarke gave a small nod, and a squeeze of their hands, and then Lexa disappeared back down the stairs into the party.  
Clarke turned to Finn. “You better make this fucking quick.”  
He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the nearest room. “Just listen. Please?” he looked up at her with his large, innocent puppy eyes that she’d fallen for far too many times before. “I just want to explain.”  
“Explain why you cheated on one of my friends with me against my knowledge, and now have manipulated her into thinking that I’m the guilty one?”  
“When you say it like that…”  
“How the hell would you say it?” Clarke yells at him. Now, looking at him, she can see what she never could when she was with him. That, despite what she thought, she never loved him. It was exciting, it was fun… it was comforting, when she had felt so run down and alone and like her life was nothing but paperwork. No. There isn’t longing in her voice. She doesn’t want anything from him – not his explanations or his apologies or his face in her life for one more minute. The one thing he did that mattered was take her friend away from her.  
“I don’t love her,” he said taking a step closer, slowly. “Not anymore. I don’t want her, I want you,” he reaches out to push a strand of hair behind her ear, and she jerks her head away at the contact. “I’m sorry, Princess. I should have told you. She doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ll leave her.”  
“Mind how you talk about her. She’s a better person than you ever were,” Clarke spat,  
The door opened, slammed open, to reveal Raven.  
“What the hell is going on?”  
“Raven.” Clarke pushed past Finn like he was a piece of furniture. “Look. You can hate me if you want, if it makes it easier. But you’re smart. You’re smarter than this. I swear on my father’s grave that I had no idea he was seeing you, but that’s not what matters. What matters is that even if I did, he still knew.”  
“Raven,” Finn tried to wrestle past Clarke, “The bitch is fucking lying. She’s jealous of you, of us and what we have. I told you, she came on to me, that nothing happened…”  
“It was three months,” Clarke said, voice dangerously calm and firm. “It lasted three months and the second I figured it out, I ended it.”  
Raven’s throat bobbed, despite her defiant eyes. “If so, why wouldn’t you have told me?”  
“Because we were best friends once,” Clarke said, begging her to understand. “And even though we haven’t really been, for a few years now, I didn’t know how to tell you without hurting you. It was… I was being a fucking coward, which I’ve been doing a lot recently. Hold it against me, if you want, but just, please, don’t stay with him.”  
“She’s just trying to break us up because she’s jealous,” Finn repeated. Raven fixed him with a resigned glare.  
“Why did you come into the room?”  
He blinked. “What?”  
Raven raised her eyebrows. “If she came onto you, and nothing happened between you, why did you come into this room and start to argue with her?”  
Finn faltered. “I-”  
“Save it.” Raven turned on her heel, and Finn ran out after her, a small glance back to Clarke, who gave her best Alexandra impression in return. He kept going.  
She lay back on the bed – Octavia’s bed and looked up at the ceiling. This had, without a doubt, been the most ridiculous and eventful 24 hours of her life.  
A gentle knock came from the doorway, and Clarke pushed herself up, smiling when she saw the familiar willowy figure in the doorway.  
“You came back.”  
“You’re surprised?”  
“You’d be completely and totally within your rights to be scared away, permanently, after everything has happened.”  
Lexa smiled to herself, coming to sit down beside her on the bed, laying back and staring at the constellations drawn on the ceiling. “Too late. I think you’re stuck with me. Plus, think of all the money I’ll save on my Netflix subscription with you and your friends’ antics to keep me entertained.”  
“Haha,” Clarke drawled. Turning so that she law on her side to face the other girl, bathed in the moonlight now pouring through the window.  
She’d been like that when she first saw her – last night, at the bar. She had been drinking alone, stealing glances at the equally depressed but far more intimidatingly dressed girl down the bar, until some sleaze had come to sit next to her and try to buy her a drink, when she was so clearly already drunk, his hand on her thigh and the other around her shoulders and trying to usher her out to wherever his flat was and then Lexa has been there, Valkyrie with a golden halo of shitty artificial light, trying to get Clarke home.  
I don’t want to be alone, she had said – she could remember now, the memories falling from some half-hidden place, shrouded in whisky and exhaustion. She yawned.  
“Time for bed for you, I think.” Lexa tutted, turning to face her.  
“I don’t want to go home,” she said like she had last night.  
Something had melted in Lexa’s face, as she took her outside, standing in the rain as they waited for a cab. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to be alone.  
Now, Clarke reached for Lexa’s hand, playing with her fingers and tracing patterns over the backs of her hands. Lexa followed the movements with her eyes, before locking them with Clarke’s, deep and unfathomable and yet she felt as if she could rest there, for a moment, like the noise from downstairs or the drama or her grades or nothing else in that moment mattered. Like it wasn’t gravity holding her to the earth, but Lexa’s gaze, and the warmth of her breath on Clarke’s face and this point in their hands where they touched, and the electricity shot up her arm.  
“We’re not alone anymore,” Lexa murmured, leaning in to touch her forehead to Clarke’s. “We can go home together.”  
Clarke smiled. “Not worried that I’ll just leave again?”  
“Somehow…no, this time, you have to promise to stay.”  
“I promise,” Clarke whispers, a sacred oath between them, and that night, far later, into the small hours of the morning, she lay again where she had lain that morning, with the quiet breathing of Lexa next to her, and the warmth reaching under the covers, emanating from where their limbs were tangled and hands intertwined, and for the first time in so long, Clarke felt completely and utterly, home.


End file.
